High-speed secure wireless data transmission is a vital component for future military, industrial, and commercial applications. Although current radio-frequency (RF) systems provide wireless data communications, this approach is limited by a lack of information security and by significantly reduced data bandwidth when a large number of communications channels are required.
Free space (i.e., line-of-sight) optical communication can improve data security and bandwidth, however, the communication hardware necessary to support a large network of sensors requires a communication bandwidth that can not be achieved with existing electronic integrated circuit (IC) technology.
A free space multi-channel optical communication system requires tracking the spatial location of communication sources along their line of sight (LOS) paths. In addition, the communication system requires a field of view sufficient to receive data from widely separated communication sources. The system must also be able to separate the communication channels according to the location of the communication sources in the field of view. The communication sources can be moving relative to the communication system or to each other, therefore, the communication system needs to track each source as the source position changes within the system field of view. Optical image capture systems can be configured to collect data over a large field of view, however, currently such systems are not suited for high-speed digital data transmission from multiple communication sources.
What is needed is an optical communications imager that is suitable for parallel and secure, high speed data communications with a network of distributed mobile communications nodes. The optical communications imager should be able to establish and maintain high data rate communications with each of the communication nodes.